You are here

Stock Market Remains Bearish

Posted by Finintell on Monday, 17 December 2018

During Monday’s trading session, the equities market shed 21bps to settle at 30,609.06 due to losses in - GUARANTY (-2.7%), FBNH (-2.7%) and UNILEVER (-2.2%). Consequently, market capitalisation declined N26.5bn to settle at N11.2tn while YTD loss weakened to -20.0%. In line with the bearish performance, activity level worsened as volume traded depreciated 38.4% to 215.0m units and value traded declined 24.9% to N1.7bn. The top traded stocks by volume were DIAMOND (71.0m units) – investors reacted to the announcement of the bank’s merger with Access bank Plc – MANSARD (20.0m units) and FBNH (16.5m units) while GUARANTY (N363.4m), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (N291.6m) and UNILEVER (N169.4m) led the top traded stocks by value.

Consumer Goods Index Emerges Lone GainerPerformance across sectors was largely bearish as 4 of 5 indices under our coverage closed in the red. The Insurance index declined the most, down 1.2% on account of selloffs in CONTINSURE (-3.8%) and LINKASSURE (-8.3). Similarly, the Oil & Gas and Industrial Goods indices trailed, shedding 1.1% and 0.8% respectively following losses in FORTE (-10.0%), OANDO (-3.0%), WAPCO (-4.0%) and CAP (-6.4%). Additionally, the banking index was down by 0.3% as a result of sell pressure in GUARANTY (-2.7%) and FBNH (-2.7%). On the flip side, the Consumer Goods index marginally advanced by 2bps on the back of gains recorded in INTBREW (+1.7%) and DANGFLOUR (+3.8%).

Investor Sentiment Remains UnchangedInvestor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) was unchanged at 0.9x as 17 stocks advanced against 20 decliners. The best performing stocks were DIAMOND (+9.5%), ACCESS (+9.4%) and CCNN (+9.2%) while FORTE (-10.0%), IKEJAHOTEL (-9.6%) and WEMA (-8.5%) led laggards. In the near term, we expect the equities market to rebound on account of bargain hunting in stocks with attractive entry prices, we (Afrinvest) however maintain our overall bearish outlook for the market.